


Scenes After a War

by psijupiter (alicamel)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicamel/pseuds/psijupiter
Summary: This is how Harry lives with himself, after.





	1. The Kitchen

Ginny was reporting on the Quidditch World Cup in India and the port-lag is too much for her to come home, even at weekends. Besides, it's good for her to stay with the team, to be on site in case of any breaking news. The kids miss her, but Harry's fine with it, really, and besides, by the time they've had dinner with each of their extended family and twice with Mrs Weasley it's nearly time for Ginny to come back home. It's Monday, the second Monday of her trip, and she will be home early on Wednesday.

Harry is making dinner. He's good in the kitchen, the Dursleys taught him that much, though the kids don't really like the stodgy, traditional British meals that Vernon favoured, all pastry and pies and potatoes. Ginny can conjure curries and noodle soup and tangy dumplings that all three fall upon like starving creatures when she has time to cook.

Tonight Harry is making steak and kidney pudding. James and Lily have already turned their noses up at it as he made up the pastry at the counter. They are in the garden tossing a Quaffle back and forth.

Albus, who hates flying and Quidditch and physical activity in general, leans on the kitchen table and watches as Harry rolls out the pasty. Harry places a dinner plate on the dough and Al leans forward to pass him a blunt kitchen knife. Harry cuts out the circle of pasty and lays it carefully on the top of the dish.

"When's Mum back?" Albus asks, even though he knows perfectly well.

Harry doesn't answer. Instead, he idly gathers up the remaining pasty. He rolls it into a ball and splits it in two, re-rolling one half into a ball again and then splitting the second ball in half again. He flattens the two pieces and starts to shape them.

"Dad," Al begins, then stops for a moment. "Dad, do you mind that I'm not on the Quidditch team?"

"Course not Al," Harry answers automatically. "Go play outside, okay? Dinner in an hour."

Al makes a face at the thought of Harry's cooking, then runs outside. Carefully, Harry attaches the two wings to the pastry snitch and balances it on his hand for a moment. After a second, the wings begin to flutter lightly. Harry smiles wistfully. The children are really beyond such novelties now, for all that it amused them when they were younger.

He goes to put the snitch on top of the dish but the small lift provided by the pastry wings sends it sliding off his hand and under the kitchen cupboards. Harry freezes, looking at the dark foreboding gap. Oh, he knows what's in there, he knows what curls up beneath things, always hiding in the shadows, in the dark.

Ashamed of such weakness, he slams the dish in the oven and shuts the door firmly. He stands at the kitchen sink washing up and catching glimpses of his children moving back and forth past the small slice of the garden he can see. James and Lily are flying, swooping up and down and occasionally speeding into sight, low to the ground and focused. Albus is playing alone, still enjoying those childlike games that he liked before he went to Hogwarts. Ginny sometimes tries to find out what it is he is imagining, but Harry doesn't ever ask. Because of that, Harry thinks, Al has told him a few of the games he plays.

_Sometimes I'm playing with a life-sized chess set,_ he told Harry one night as Harry tucked the boys in. He whispered the words in Harry's ear, so James wouldn't hear.

_Sometimes I'm Merlin, I'm trying to tell Arthur what to do,_ he told Harry when the two of them were sitting on the grass and watching the other three play Quidditch. _But he doesn't believe in magic, so I have to prove it to him._

"You can be yourself, Al," Harry had said.

"I am most of the time," Al had replied with a shrug, his eyes watching Lily as she dove for the snitch.

_Sometimes I'm Dumbledore, fighting Grindleward,_ Albus whispered in a noisy bookshop last week. _Sometimes I'm fighting Voldemort. Sometimes I'm you._

Harry had looked at his own face on the front of James's DADA textbook for next year and swallowed back all the words threatening to spill out.

Looking out of the window now he can see Al looking at the sky, his wand dangling in one hand. James and Lily never carried theirs around in the holidays. They had to take James's away, because he wouldn't stop casting spells and Lily didn't bother because it got in her way.

Albus always carried his, though he'd never, to Harry's knowledge, used it outside of Hogwarts. He would pretend, Harry supposed, watching him pointing his wand upwards, then to the side, them at the ground. He laughs - or maybe shouts, Harry can't hear him - and flings his wand away and dives in the other direction, out of Harry's view. A few moments later he comes back into sight, running towards the window, his dark hair messy and his green eyes sparkling. Harry smiles at him, but he doesn't smile back and Harry thinks he's too lost in his game until Albus comes charging in through the back door and into the kitchen.

"Dad," he shouts, like he'd been shouting it over and over. "James fell off his broom, oh, come on!" He runs back out again, looking behind him to check Harry is following, which he is, running and overtaking Al, his heart pounding in his ears wondering how he hadn't heard anything.

"I'm all right," James grumbles when Harry appears, brushing leaves out of his hair. "Lily knocked me off my broom!"

"Oh Merlin, it's Quidditch. You get knocked off your broom loads at school!"

Harry frowns. "You get knocked off your broom at school?"

"Yeah, he's rubbish, they only keep him on cause he's your son - "

James leaps at Lily with a shout and Harry has to pull them both apart before things escalate. "Stop it!" He holds a hand out to stop James leaping again while Lily leans on her broom and smirks.

"I suppose you'll be better," James spits at her.

"Course I will! I knocked you off, not that _that's_ a challenge," she snorts. "I can't wait to try out. I'm going to be the best Beater ever!"

Harry looks over at Lily quickly. "You want to be a Beater?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh I - I didn't know."

Lily rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything. James is back on his feet, brushing grass off his trousers.

"Wanna play Keeper-Chaser?" Lily offers, which James seems to take as a peace offering. They grab their brooms and spin off into the sky. Harry really doesn't understand his oldest son and youngest daughter, but they seemed to like each other, most of the time. He'd once been concerned at how often they fight, but Ginny never had been worried, so Harry had pretended he wasn't either.

Harry looks around for Al, sees him whispering over a bush and shakes his head. God, he has weird kids, he thinks. With a glance upwards to see Lily sailing a Quaffle past James, Harry goes back inside to lay the table.


	2. Platform 10

Harry is eleven and he is lost. The train station is huge, full of echoing, static leaden announcements and rushing people. He's pushing through a crowd of businessmen and women who are going in the opposite direction. They keep pushing elbows and briefcases into his stomach and face until Harry feels like he can't breathe. He's starting to panic. He's supposed to be somewhere or to be with someone, but he can't remember who or where.

Harry pushes and pushes and pushes until he emerges into a relatively open space between platforms nine and ten. He leans against the wall between the platforms to catch he breath and fold the long sleeves of Dudley's old jumper up again. He presses his face into his hands and when he looks up again he can see someone sitting on a bench on platform ten. He knows them, so he moves towards them. They keep blinking out of sight as people and trolleys pass between them but Harry reaches the man - he can see now that it's a man - who is sitting on the bench and looking up at the sky through the glass ceiling.

"What a thing!" The man says, not looking at Harry. "To sit indoors and be able to see the sky outside!"

Harry looks up and then back at the man, confused and concerned. He's never thought that it was particularly strange, but maybe he's never looked properly. Eventually the man turns to look at him and he smiles through his long white beard and his blue eyes twinkle behind his glasses.

"Hello child. Are you lost?"

Harry takes a step back, because he doesn't know this man, he realises. Not yet, he brain supplies.

"Take my arm, dear boy."

Harry knows about stranger danger and what he should do when he's lost. He should scream, run, find a police officer or a person who works here or a nice woman with small children. But the man smiles and his eyes twinkle. Harry reaches up, because it's easier to do as he's told. Take my arm. He smiles shakily and takes the old man's arm. His stomach drops and spins, but it's only nerves.

"Do you play chess?" The man asks, as they walk along the platform. "I consider myself a master at the game. It takes skill to see the whole battle, forwards and backwards for so many moves, so see all the possibilities that lie ahead."

Harry shakes his head. He looks about with interest. They are further along the platform than anyone else. The plastic benches look newer, less worn and the floor looks dirtier. Harry can see the end, where the platform slopes down to the ground.

"I'll teach you," Dumbledore says, at the end of the platform. "I'll show you what to do."

"Please," Harry breathes. "Please show me, I don't know - "

There's the rushing sound of a train approaching, and Harry realises Dumbledore has led him onto the train tracks and he can see the Hogwarts Express racing towards them. Dumbledore is watching it with a curious expression and Harry thinks he should run, but - Dumbledore said take my arm, he said, you brave boy, you wonderful man, he said, Voldemort must be the one to kill him, he must going willingly, so Harry stays on the train tracks and looks at speeding train ahead of them and holds onto Dumbledore's arm.

Harry wakes in his cupboard, staring at the dark underside of the stairs. His scar aches and there is a sliver of light beneath the door. Harry panics, because it's morning and he should be up, he should be cooking breakfast, Aunt Petunia will be so mad -

Harry wakes in his bed and has rolled upright and placed his feet on the floor before Ginny places a warm hand on his back. "Harry," she mumbles sleepily. "What is it, did the kids - "

"No," Harry tells her. "They're fine, I just - toilet," he explains. She nods trustingly and goes back to sleep.

Harry uses the toilet and splashes water on his face. He checks on the kids. Albus is asleep, but James' expectant eyes blink at him in the dark. He starts to sit up, but Harry smiles and mouths 'not yet.' James lies back with a frown and crossed arms.

Lily is fast asleep, still buried deep in tight in her blankets, the way Harry tucked her in. The sliver of light from the corridor doesn't startle her awake. He finds Lily's collection of Chocolate Frog cards on her desk and slips one out of the box and into the pocket of his dressing gown.

At the bottom of the stairs Harry's old trunk is packed with James's things. Harry sits on the top, running his hand along the metal edgings. Harry remembers how he couldn't sleep the night before he started Hogwarts - the tension, the worry, the excitement. How he clenched his hand around the ticket Hagrid gave him, the ticket that seemed like his only hope of escape, the ticket that foolishly, ridiculously seemed like the worst kind of joke.

James's excitement is for other, different reasons, both worse and better. They've had such different childhoods up to this moment but Harry thinks, once James is at Hogwarts, Harry might finally start to understand him.

In the garden he stands and stares at the sky as it lightens into the dawn and his keeps his hand in his dressing gown pocket, clenched around the stolen card. The dew dampened grass chills his bare feet. He waits until the sun is high and bright, the light washing the colours of the world away. When he finally pulls it out, the cards is bent and creased. He unfolds it reluctantly, but once he has smoothed it out the frame is empty.


	3. The Bathroom

Harry is awake at three in the morning scrubbing the bathroom. Ginny can never understand how he can wear the same socks until she physically takes them off his feet but take up to hour to scrub the kitchen every night and always makes sure the bathroom is spotless before he leaves for work. Ginny is not a particularly tidy person and when they first moved in together Harry had to readjust a lot of ideas of home that he didn't even know he had. The tension between them sometimes seemed insurmountable. Harry had no idea how to even begin to fix it.

Harry's worked at it, they both have. They've _listened_ and _compromised._ Things are better, but Harry still can't explain everything to her and at some point they are going to have to have a conversation about hand-me-down clothes and endless chores and the cupboard under the stairs. He rehearses it in his head, but he can't start the conversation right knowing Ginny like he does, knowing that she would jump in, would try to make him feel better. Her room at the Burrow wasn't much bigger than his cupboard and, like all her brothers, had to make do with hand-me-down everything.

Harry doesn't know the words to make his childhood different from hers, to make it so much less than the sum of its parts.

Harry finishes on the wall above the length of the tub and turns his attention to the taps. He selects a new bottle of cleaner and a new cloth and scrubs around base until his fingertips turn red.

Or maybe he does know the words, maybe he jut can't say them out loud because then they would become real, become solid, become a burden of blame that he would eventually have to lay down on someone before it crushed him.

Harry scrubs and scrubs until he can make out his own face in the taps, distorted as it is. He pauses for a moment and just reflects. When a shape appears in the surface behind him it makes him jump.

"Hey."

Harry stands awkwardly. He's inside the tub still, looking at Ginny where she leans on the door frame. Ginny drops her eyes to the cleaning supplies but looks back at him with a tired smile. (This is _compromise._ )

"Did the baby wake up?"

Ginny shakes her head and holds out her hands for Harry to take as he steps gingerly out of the tub. When he has both feet on solid ground he tugs her towards him and she steps easily into his embrace. They stay for a moment and in the silence of their own house, Harry feels his muscles relax, his mind start to drift.

"Did you - " Ginny starts, then stops. She steps back and Harry sits down on the side of the tub.

"Not yet."

"Harry," Ginny starts, "the ceremony's tomorrow, we can't put it back again..."

Whatever she wants to say next is interrupted by the baby crying, followed by James. Ginny sighs and rubs her eyes.

"I'll get the baby," Harry tells her, sliding past.

"He needs a name Harry," Ginny calls after him.

Harry rocks his new son back to sleep and stands for a long time with this small life tucked against his chest. He can hear James and Ginny next door and smiles. They talked about names of course, when James was born, and then again when the light on the end of Ginny's wand glowed green for a second time. Some Wizarding traditions are buried deep, even among the Weasleys, and while Ron and Hermione find a compromise on this point, Ginny wants Harry to name their children.

He can see the names he would chose every time he closes his eyes, trapped in flashes of memories. His parents, dancing in the autumn leaves. Sirius, sliding into Padfoot; Snape, the first time he spoke to Lily. Dumbledore, the first time Harry remembers seeing him, shouting nonsense words with a sly, teasing smile.

James was simple enough to name. He slid out fast and easy, eager to see the world, desperate to be a part of it. Of course he'd be named after two of the fathers Harry had, and grow into those names; brave and foolish, and so unlike Harry that he wonders if he'll ever understand his oldest son.

His second child, whoever he will turn out to be, is more difficult to name.

Or rather, his name is harder to say out loud.

That night he dreams that he's back in his cupboard, curled up into a ball in the dark. Broken Lego men that he rescued from the bin dance a delicate pattern across hand, their sharp feet leaving tiny indentations in the fleshy part of his thumb. The Dursleys are out, he remembers, and they locked him in here not to keep him safe but so the house would be.

The Lego man with no legs reached up his arms, a parody of a hug.

When he looks sideways he can see Snape in the opposite corner, slumped where the two walls meet. He looks young, as young as Harry. He's still bleeding, like he always is in Harry's dreams, the sticky memories spilling out of his shredded skin and on to the floor with no one left to catch them.

Harry wonders what Snape has done, to get left behind in the darkness. He tries not to look, in case the other boy starts to talk, want to tell him things Harry isn't ready to know yet.

Harry can hear something else in the dark, under his bed. He draws his feet up to protect them from the monsters he imagines in the shadows.

He hears the Dursleys come back, but it's not Vernon who opens the door. Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkle and his glasses glint. He doesn't look at the shadows under the bed, doesn't look at Snape, he just places a hand on Harry's chest to push him back onto the bed and says _you have to stay here, just for now. It's not just for your own good._

There's something small and lost crying, distantly.

When he wakes up, just after dawn, he can hear the baby whimpering quietly. He collects his son and goes back to the bathroom. The rest of the house is still dark behind closed curtains, but the sun shines brightly through the bathroom window, bouncing and gleaming off all the clean white tiles. Harry holds the baby against his chest as he opens the window - he needs fresh air, needs daylight, needs to look at the sun until all he can see is the light, the white space, the certainty that all will be well.

Harry concentrates on the name his chosen, letting it fill his head until it's all he can see. He finds his mouth, chanting it like a charm. Why not? A spell is just words after all, words and meaning, and not so different from a name. In his arms, the baby's mouth moves too, his eyes bright and watching Harry.

Everyone arrives a few hours later. There's noise and laughter and a house full of light. James toddles unsteadily around the room, running before he can walk. Harry holds the baby, as is tradition, and carries him the garden. There's no other words, no spell or charm or ceremony. Ginny stands next to him, Molly and Arthur behind her. Hermione holds James on her knee, hands clasped tight around his tummy. The garden is quiet and bright in the noon sun. Harry can imagine his parents doing this, once, just like this.

"Albus," he says, passing the baby to Ginny at last. "Albus Severus." The name sits heavily on his tongue for a moment in the silence.

"A fine name," Arthur comments, his throat sounding choked. "A fine, fine name."


End file.
